Drudge Hollywood: Will Volcano Sell?

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Drudge Hollywood: Will Volcano Sell?

Columnist Matt Drudge on Volcano hype, Ellen out, and the 63-year-old woman who gave birth ...

Anticipointment? Nail-biting time down at Fox

Is Volcano a hit? It feels like we've been on alert for ages on this one.

"The Coast is Toast" - the marketing slug, created by the folks who worked Independence Day last time around. Worked us until we cried for mercy and bought the tickets and believed it was important. These people don't do anything halfway. It's always hype on the grandest of scales. And they're at it again. This time Los Angeles is struck with a volcanic eruption as a mountain forms at the base of the La Brea tar pits. "Hurry, evacuate the women and children to the Hard Rock Cafe!"

Everywhere you look, on every corner (on every page of the Los Angeles Times calendar section, sometimes referred to as club studio - where journalists write what will help enhance the ads) is a push for Volcano. Within a 2-mile strip of Santa Monica Boulevard there are, at last count, 38 separate advertisements - billboards, bus-stop posters - for the film, in what has to be a record. A Fox spokesman on Wednesday refused to reveal the exact number of public view Volcano ads that have been placed. (The debris-flow avalanche is on the streets, not on the screen.)

Word around town has the suits testing the hell out of the picture that will finally see release tomorrow. They've been nervous. It's another one of those $100-million bets. And industry talk all week has been how the film "isn't tracking well."

Studios spend endless energy trying to gauge audience "awareness" on a product. ("Have you heard of the film....?" "What movie are you going to this weekend?" "Will you bring a date?" "What do you think Michael Jackson really means by Blood on the Dance Floor?)

One executive down at Fox reportedly told his staff mid-week that there's more interest in ABC's The Shining miniseries than in Volcano.

A well-placed source reveals that Volcano was getting single digits in the influential National Research Group runs as it headed into release week. Volcano averaged a 6 on the NRG scale as of Monday. Not good.

"You hope your film is testing in the high teens or '20s by the time it opens in theaters," says the source, who expresses overall concern for Fox's Volcano. "Research is showing that people feel like they've already seen a volcano movie (Dante's Peak). Fox is running into the resistance they feared by going second ... [but] there are late signs that the numbers are inching upwards."

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Ellen and Diane

In a candid conversation, her first on television since revealing her sexuality, Ellen DeGeneres reveals to ABC News' Diane Sawyer new details behind her decision to "out" her character and herself.

The Ellen "outing" has turned into a public-relations boom for the struggling and buzzless ABC-TV network. Advertising Age is reporting that the ABC sales department has quietly boosted ad rates from US$170,000 for a 30-second spot on a regular Ellen to $335,000 on the special editions. And the Washington Post's Tom Shales will write this weekend that network insiders expect the show's Nielsen share to increase from a seasonal Ellen average of 17 to something in the rarefied 25-to-30 range (and possibly beyond).

ABC and Disney executives will get their first gauge of the public's interest in the new Ellen when the "coming out" interview airs this Friday on ABC's 20/20. Roll the tape, Mickey Mouse:

On when and why she decided to go public:

DeGeneres: I made the decision during the summer that I wasn't going to live my life as a lie any more. And that was a decision, just strictly a personal thing because I got so sick of, in interviews, worrying about the question and knowing that a lot of people already knew.... And I wasn't going to sit in the back of the bus any more. I was, I belong with everyone else. And that's finally what I did.

On Disney's reaction:

Sawyer: How did the executives react? Disney, ABC?

DeGeneres: They were all very supportive.

Sawyer: They had to have a reservation or two.

DeGeneres: I think they probably did ... [I told them] life goes on for you. This is my life. I am taking the biggest risk here. And I'm willing to take the risk because that's how much it means to me.... It was such a joke to me that people would think that I would do it for ratings. That's just not the kind of person I am.

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Freak: 63-year-old woman gives birth

A 63-year-old Southern California woman has become the oldest woman in the world to ever give birth to a healthy infant, the journal Fertility and Sterility will report on Thursday.

The woman accomplished the feat through the use of eggs donated by another woman, says Dr. Richard J. Paulson, an infertility specialist at USC.

The Los Angeles Times reports that she arrived at Paulson's clinic stating that she was 50 (USC has an age limit of 55 on accepting patients). "She became pregnant on the second IVF attempt, and finally - when she was 13 weeks pregnant - confessed to her actual age.... The healthy girl was born by Caesarean section at 38 weeks gestation and was breastfed."